Like Father, Like Daughter
by LittletonPace
Summary: What if House had a teenage daughter? What if she worked at the hospital with him? And what if she got so sick that even House couldn't save her? A House Fanfic: If you like it, please review! Feedback is love! :D
1. Chapter 1: Clinical Manipulation

**Chapter 1: Clinical Manipulation **

Greg House limped through the halls of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital as fast as he could, trying to avoid the nagging tones of Dr Cuddy rambling on about clinic duty for another day.

"House!" Cuddy yelled as she spotted Greg heading for the exit.

Busted, House stopped and turned around. He gave Cuddy a very fake smile. "There you are! Been looking everywhere for you."

"Clinic. Now." She told him in a stern voice.

"Ooh, will you cane me if I don't?" House teased her.

"No, but that cane of yours will need to be removed surgically if you don't get down to the clinic." Cuddy told him folding her arms.

House continued down the hallways towards the exit. "As much as I'd love to help you, because as you know that's my mission in life, I have to get home."

"To what?" Cuddy said with a smirk.

"Ohh, saucy." House mocked her as he headed out into the cold.

Cuddy watched him go. Then she got an idea. "Grace has been down there for three hours." She called after him. House stopped. He turned around and looked at her with a slightly confused look. Well, as confused as House could look.

"You gave her the job." House realized. His daughter Grace was seventeen and had been bugging him for months to work at the hospital with him. He'd refused, so she had gone straight to Cuddy.

"Grace not only inherited your 'I don't give a crap' attitude but she wants to be a doctor, too." Cuddy told House through the open doors of the hospital, ignoring looks she got from the people walking by who were obviously annoyed that they were letting the cold air in.

House finally gave in and came back into the hospital. He walked up to Cuddy. "You think you can use my daughter to manipulate me into the clinic?"

"Yep." Cuddy grinned. She turned on her heel and walked away, faintly hearing the sound of House's can hitting the hospital floor as he walked towards the elevator. Cuddy smiled to herself at a job well done and went back to her office.

xxx

Grace was sitting behind the nurses' station down in the clinic. Her first day on the job was going well so far, at least she was in a hospital. She was only seventeen, she wasn't aloud to distribute medications or make diagnosis' or treat patients, but she was aloud to do paperwork. Nurse Hamilton, a twenty-something who hated her job, took advantage of Grace at first, sending every piece of useless paperwork for her to be filed thinking it would keep her busy for a few hours. But when Grace breezed through it all in twenty minutes, Nurse Hamilton backed off. She still didn't talk to Grace, but she didn't care. All the other staff were quite welcoming. And, unlike her father, Grace appreciated their company.

She'd been told that she was a lot like Greg while being completely different. She assumed that they meant she had his 'who cares?' demeanor while being quite charming as well. She often wondered if her father had been like that when he was younger.

She loved her relationship with her father because it was unconventional, the epitome of Greg House. She stood up to him, she challenged him and she took care of him. All qualities she'd inherited from House. Which is why they could be laughing one minute and screaming at each other the next. They were very close and Grace liked it that way. She was too mature for her age to be worried about the teenage social ramifications of being such good friends with a parent. Not that House couldn't tell her off when he needed to. He was the one person who could keep Grace in line, and in return, she was the one who could do the same for him.

Off in her little dream world, Grace realized she'd been standing in the middle of the nurse's station for a couple of minutes doing nothing. She snapped out of it and got back to work. Then she heard a familiar voice ring through the clinic.

"You enjoy this, don't you?" House said as he limped over to the nurse's station, leaning on the counter.

"What's that?" Grace asked innocently.

"Having Cuddy tell me off." He told her.

"Oh that." She said. Grace looked up at him. "Yes I do."

"When were you planning on telling me about this?" House asked.

Grace drew in a breath. "Well, Cuddy knows, Wilson knows, Cameron knows, Chase knows, Foreman-"

House held up his hand. "I get the idea."

"I figured one of them would tell you. Apparently not. Lucky me." Grace smiled at him.

"School." House stated simply, in a way that told Grace he thought that would solve the problem.

"Three days a week I leave school at three. Get here at four. Work until seven." Grace answered almost robotically. "Cuddy and I sorted it out."

"Cuddy's not your father." House told her. Grace didn't answer. House sighed. She was a good kid, really. She wasn't rebellious or immature, on the contrary she had the mind of an eighty year old. He supposed having her mother leave when she was so young had something to do with having to grow up so fast. House had done the best he could on his own and everyone he spoke to told him he'd done well. Actually, the phrase most often used was 'In spite of you, she's turned out great.'. Grace was one of two people in the world House trusted, the other being James Wilson. More than that, though, Grace was his friend. And House had them in short supply. Which is why that day in the clinic looking at Grace's face, he had to relent.

"Fine. Work here. Enjoy the ambience of the clinic." House said, turning.

"Uh-uh-uh." Grace halted him.

When House turned, he saw she was holding out a file to him. "Cuddy told me to give you this when you came down." Grace said with a wry grin.

"_When_ I came down?" House asked suspiciously, taking the file.

"There's a boy in room one with some kind of stomach flu. His mother is a self-confessed hypochondriac." Grace said with a happy grin. "Enjoy."

xxx


	2. Chapter 2: Suddenly

Drama is a'coming – wanted to get the Grace/House history out early :D

**Chapter 2: Suddenly **

House sat in the corner of Clinic Room 1 mindlessly tapping a tune with his walking stick as the mother of the young boy sitting on the bed before him rattled off about his symptoms.

"He's been coughing for three days, now. He can't sleep, he can't eat. It affects everything; sports, school." She was saying, fiddling with the boy's jumper to make it sit straighter. "And this morning, he sneezed."

"Ms. Addley, Jason has a cold." House told her in a bored tone. "He'll be fine."

"He's showing classic signs of pneumonia." Ms. Addley pressed.

"Have you seen the news these days? Everyone is showing 'classic signs' of everything." House took out his pill bottle and swallowed a Vicodin.

"What're you taking?" Ms. Addley asked quizzically.

"Vitamins." House told her, stuffing the bottle back in his coat pocket. "Too good to share. Give your son cough syrup and bed rest, he'll be fine by the weekend." House got to his feet and limped over to the door to leave.

"And if he's not?" Ms. Addley called after him.

House pulled open the door and walked out. "Not my problem." He called over his shoulder.

Ms. Addley turned to her son. "Wait here, honey, mummy's going to see talk to the doctor some more." She turned and took off looking annoyed after Dr. House.

As she left the room, she brushed past Grace who was on her way in to fill the supplies cupboard. She watched after the woman who proceeded to corner her father and force him to talk to her before going into the clinic room. She spied the young boy sitting patiently on the bed.

"Hey there." She greeted him, walking over to the shelves and dumping the boxes of swabs and tongue depressors she was carrying on top of the counter.

"Hi." The boy replied.

"What's your name?" Grace asked.

"Jason." He told her. "I'm eight next week."

"Eight? Wow." Grace said in a tone a lot of people used when talking to a child; almost demeaning. "Are you having a party?"

Jason nodded. "My mum is getting a clown."

"Clowns, huh?" Grace stacked the supplies in the cupboard. "Never really got into the whole men wearing make up thing." Jason just looked at her with a slightly confused and innocent look on his face. "But you don't need to know that." She quickly added. "Are you having lots of friends come to your party?" She asked trying to sound casual.

"Yeah, my whole class." Jason said. "But not my dad. He said he'd come but now he's working."

"Well, that sucks." Grace said, turning around so she was facing the child. She leant back on the counter. "What does he do?"

"I'm not sure." Jason replied.

The way he spoke told Grace that maybe 'Daddy's on business' was a phrase Jason's mother used to explain why he'd abandoned them.

Jason looked up at Grace. "What does your Daddy do?"

"He's a doctor." Grace answered.

"Like you?" Jason asked wide eyed.

"No, no." Grace laughed. "No, I'm not a doctor. I'd like to be, though. One day."

"I want to be a fire man." Jason told her proudly.

"Nice." Grace nodded approvingly.

"My mummy thinks it's too dangerous. But she's a teacher; she thinks everything is too dangerous." Jason continued. "What does your mummy do?"

Grace averted his gaze slightly. She didn't want to lie to the kid, but she didn't really want to expel the inner demons of her past to an eight-year-old. "I don't have a mum." She said simply, which was basically the truth. Her mother left her and her dad when she was three and she hadn't contacted them once since. In Grace's mind, staying away was the best thing she could do. She had her dad, she didn't need anyone else.

"Why don't you have a mummy?" Jason asked, seemingly interested.

Grace shrugged. "Some people don't have mummy's." she told him blatantly, hoping that it wasn't too harsh. Jason nodded and didn't pry any further.

xxx

"Dr. House, I don't think you understand." Ms. Addley was saying to House as he tried to ignore her. "He had pneumonia as a baby and his pediatrician said there's always a chance he could get it again. It's getting colder, he's susceptible."

"He's fine!" House told her for the hundredth time. "Do you _want_ me to admit him for the sniffles?"

"I want you to show some care in my son's health." Ms. Addley told him.

House turned to her. "So you want me to lie? Because I _don't_ care. I diagnose and then I never see him again. I don't need to care. Caring is the parent's job, not the doctors."

Ms. Addley opened her mouth, prepared to yell quite a loud insult into House's face when her son came running out of the clinic over to his mother's side.

"What happened, Jason?" Ms. Addley asked concernedly.

"That girl fell down." He said worriedly pointing back to the clinic room.

"What girl?" Ms. Addley asked.

House immediately filled with worry. He headed towards the first clinic room. "Grace?" he called out, hoping that she'd come bounding into view. The nurse's at the station overheard Jason and were following House as he walked. One ran past him into the room and heard her say "Oh my God". House reached the doorframe and looked in.

Grace was sprawled out on the floor with blood pooling at her head.

House's eyes filled with fear. "Oh no."

xxx


	3. Chapter 3: Awakening

_**Sorry about the long break since I've updated this story, I've been busy with other fics and this one sorta took a back seat. Hopefully you'll like this update :D**_****

Chapter 3: Awakening

Grace's mind was the first thing to regain consciousness. Her eyelids were very heavy and it took her a couple of blinks to get them open. And when she did, her vision was blurry. She realized she was lying in a bed in Princeton hospital. Her back was to the door but she could see the sign out her window. It was dark out but Grace wasn't sure how long she'd been asleep. Or unconscious. She didn't really remember what had happened.

Her head ached like crazy and as she rolled over onto her back it throbbed even more. She noticed someone else in the room. It took her eyes a couple of moments to adjust to the light from the hall coming into the room between the blinds but when she got a clear view, she realized James Wilson was sleeping in the chair by her bed.

He had a folder in his lap that he'd obviously been looking through but he shifted in his sleep and the folder fell to the floor. The noise woke him up out of his slumber.

Grace lazily waved a hand at him to let him know she was awake.

"Hey." He said, sliding the chair closer to Grace's bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore." Grace admitted. She eyed Wilson up and down. "You're not wearing your coat...that means I don't have cancer, right?"

"We're still running tests." Wilson told her honestly. "So far it doesn't look like cancer."

"Where's my dad?" she asked.

Wilson smirked. "Where do you think?"

**xxx**

"There can't be _nothing_ wrong with her." House lectured his team. "Healthy teenagers don't collapse for no reason." Limping over to his whiteboard, House got out a marker and stood expectantly in front of Cameron, Chase and Foreman. "Ideas?"

"Could be a blood disorder." Foreman suggested. "Diabetes or anemia."

House added it to the white board.

"There are forms of leukemia that affect the blood." Dr. Chase piped up.

"Wilson tested for cancer." Cameron reminded him. "All tests were negative."

"He tested for the most likely cancers." Foremen corrected her. "Could be acute basophilic leukemia. It's rare and she's a little old but-"

"Test her bone marrow." House cut in.

"Some lymphomas also affect the blood." Cameron added. "But her scan was clean."

"Doesn't mean there's nothing there." Chase told her.

House finished writing down all of their suggestions on the white board. "Draw her blood; test it for everything." He said to his team.

Foreman and Chase got to their feet and left the room. Cameron stayed behind and packed her things slowly. House limped over to the coffee station and proceeded to make himself a cup.

"How are you doing?" Cameron asked gently as she got to her feet.

"She'll be fine." House said without turning around.

"I'm talking about you." Cameron pressed. "She's your daughter; do you really think you can work on her case?"

"Don't you have some tests to run?" House answered.

With an answer that wasn't at all helpful, Cameron turned and left the office.

House limped back into his own office and took a seat at his desk. He wracked his brain trying to think of all the ailments Grace had suffered from as a child. She'd had whooping cough as a baby but that had cleared up within a couple of weeks. She'd never had any issues with her blood and the only time she'd been admitted to hospital was when she was seven and found out the hard way that she couldn't fly off the jungle-gym. He hadn't been in to see Grace since she'd been admitted and didn't want to yet. He was treating her like any other patient. And with any other patient, he kept his distance.

**xxx**

Wilson was telling Grace a funny story about his ex-wife to try and lift her spirits. It was early morning and he had finished work for the day hours ago. But knowing how House was, he didn't want to leave her alone. Not until she fell asleep, at least. She was sitting up now and smiling as Wilson spoke, but she still looked exhausted.

After Wilson finished story-telling, Grace spoke. "You can go home." She told him.

"I don't mind staying." Wilson said honestly.

"No, its ok. I'll be asleep soon." She said while yawning. She waved her hand towards the door. "Go, go home."

Wilson stood and gathered his coat and papers together. "You're sure? I'll stay if you want."

"Get the hell out." She smiled.

Wilson leant over the bed and kissed her forehead. "I'll check on you tomorrow, okay?"

Grace nodded and waved as he left her room.

On his way towards the elevator, Wilson heard a familiar voice call him from the seating area. "Hate that hotel so much your resorting to living in his hospital?" Wilson turned to see House sitting in one of the chairs outside Grace's room. "It's a nice, sterile environment, I guess. But I couldn't get used to the constant vomit."

"She's fine." Wilson told House hitting the button for the elevator. "Tired, but fine."

House dropped the jokes and took interest. "My guys are testing her blood." He paused. "You're sure its not cancer?"

"Positive." Wilson told him. "I tested her for everything. Twice. It's not cancer or any form of tumor." He paused. "Are you going to go in to see her?"

House shrugged. "She's sleeping."

"She's your daughter." Wilson reminded him.

"Why do people keep telling me that? Like I don't know?" House leant his can against his leg as he took another Vicodin.

"Well, then you better-"

The persistent beeping of a hospital alarm sounded at that moment, piercing through Wilson and House's conversation. They both instinctively looked towards Grace's room. Two nurses were pushing the sliding door aside and running in. Both Doctors followed.

They reached the door to her room and saw Grace seizing uncontrollably, the monitors beside her was beeping wildly. The nurses were trying to keep her steady but they weren't having a lot of luck. House stormed in between them.

"Move. Move!" He yelled to the nurses, tossing his can aside and grasping Grace's shoulders. He pushed down on her so that she remained as still as she could.

Wilson also helped out, grabbing Grace's legs and holding her down as she continued to shake.

"Grace?" House asked her, not expecting a response, but hoping perhaps it would calm her. They didn't. She just kept shuddering. "Grace?!"


	4. Chapter 4: Reasoning

**Chapter Four: Reasoning**

House sat hidden in the shadowed corner of Grace's room. She'd had to be sedated to stop her seizures and was now being kept medically unconscious. House had ordered another CT scan to check her brain for a tumor and was waiting on results. He watched her from his seat; twirling his cane back and forth in his fingers. She looked like a child again; so small and fragile – two things Grace definitely was not.

"I've been looking for you." Wilson said quietly as he came into Grace's room. He held an x-ray out to House. "Grace's scan; it's clear. No tumor."

House took the x-ray and heaved himself to his feet. "We should biopsy her brain; tumor could be hidden in a vein…"

"We're not going to cut into the brain of teenage girl for no reason." Wilson told him firmly. "There are a million causes of seizure; don't jump the gun."

House checked the scan himself on the x-ray machine in Grace's room; he didn't see a sign of any damage at all let alone a tumor. He sighed under his breath. "Did you run a blood tox?" he asked.

Wilson furrowed his brow. "Grace would never do drugs." He told him. "You know that. She rips into you every day about your Vicodin. Hell; she rips into _me_ when I write the prescription."

House thought for a moment. He didn't think Grace would do amphetamines; she was smart. Having said that; she was also smart enough to know how to hide it. House didn't see Grace as much as he knew he should. She pretty much just took care of herself, and House, without help. She was often asleep by the time he got home from work. She wasn't silly enough to keep drugs at their home; if she was doing drugs she'd do them in a place House would never know about. "Check her blood." He said stiffly. "Marijuana can cause seizures-"

"Yeah; but they wouldn't cause her collapse." Wilson countered. "She's-"

"Check her blood!" House snapped as he yanked the x-ray off the machine and thrust it at Wilson. "Page me when you get the results."

Wilson sighed and watched his friend limp out of the room. He then glanced over at Grace; whom he'd been speaking to only hours before. Even as drowsy as she'd been then; she'd still seemed like Grace. The frail body that lay in the bed before Wilson appeared to be more like a ghostly shell of his young friend; hollow.

**xxx**

Cameron peered through her microscope at a sample of Grace's blood. "I'm finding nothing even remotely suspicious in her blood." She muttered to Chase. "I don't think what she has is blood related."

"Well; you can't go to House and say you don't _think_ it's her blood." Chase told her. "He wants something concrete." He linked his hands together and held them behind his head. "Maybe it's something simple…like meningitis?"

"No fever." Cameron countered.

"Encephalitis." Chase offered before both he and Cameron repeated in the same breath. "_No fever_."

"I have a theory." Foreman announced as he came into the lab. "What if Grace's first collapse wasn't just fainting? What if it was a miror seizure? And her second – I checked her brain waves; it wasn't strong."

"You're thinking syncope's?" Cameron assumed; remembering back to an medical journal she'd read on the subject. Syncope's were another name given for fainting, loss of consciousness or minor seizures.

Foreman nodded and held up a file. "Just checked her heart rate for the past two hours; it's lower than normal. Could be Bradycardia."

"The medication we gave her to keep her unconscious could also slow her heart rate." Cameron noted.

Foreman nodded in agreement. "But if it _is_ Bradycardia her heart rate could just keep slowing and cut off oxygen to her brain."

"Keep an eye on her blood gases." Chase spoke up. "If they slow as well then you might be right."

"Well, you can't go to House and tell him we _might_ be right." Cameron teased Chase.

Foreman sighed. "I think we need to wake her up. If her heart rate goes up then it's not Bradycardia."

"I'll tell House." Cameron said as she got to her feet.

"You'll tell House nothing." Cuddy said as she came into the lab. "You come to me when it concerns Grace from now on; I'm her primary physician."

"But he-" Cameron started.

"Is a father watching his daughter get sicker and sicker." Cuddy finished for her. "He can't be objective. Not with Grace." She turned to Foreman. "Your prelim diagnosis is Bradycardia?"

Foreman nodded.

"But she doesnt have any of the other Bradycardia symptoms." Chase brought up. "Her thyroid function is normal; she doesn't have any gastro intestinal issues and no jaundice."

"Wilson just told me that House wants her tested for anphetamines." Cuddy told the three of them. "Bradycardia can stem from abuse of certain drugs. It also explains her seizures and waking her up won't cause her any damage – so do it. I'll deal with House."

**xxx**

As Grace awoke; she recognized the two blurry faces staring down at her as Chase and Cameron. Her chest felt heavy and her head still hurt. She had no idea what time it was or even if it was still Wednesday.

"Hey, Grace." Cameron smiled. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired." Grace mumbled as they raised her bed so she was sitting up. "What happened?"

"You had a minor seizure so we gave you something to help you sleep." Chase informed her. "But you're going to be ok."

"Where's my Dad?" She asked as she blinked a few times to clear her vision.

"I'll go find him for you." Cameron offered with a smile before leaving the room.

"Gave us quite a scare, Grace." Chase told her with a smirk.

"Well; had to give you _something_ to do." Grace quipped back tiredly as she rubbed her eyes.

"Are your eyes alright?" Chase asked with a furrowed brow as he removed his penlight from his pocket.

"Yeah; yeah." Grace assured him. "Just blurry."

Chase flicked his torch in each of Grace's eyes and pursed his lips together in a firm line. "Hang tight." He told her. "I'll be back soon."

"What?" Grace asked as she watched his blurred shape leave her room. "What's wrong with me?" She was starting to panic. "Am I going blind?"

"I just need to confirm your results." Chase assured her in a calm voice. "No need to worry." He smiled and exited the room.

Grace blinked repeatedly; forcing her vision to clear – but nothing happened. She looked around her empty room and suddenly felt completely alone.

**xxx**

House was leaning back against his desk chair watching as the snow fell delicately from the sky. His thoughts consisted only of Grace; what the hell was wrong with her? He couldn't put his finger on it. His own words were swimming around his head; the ones he spat at his 'trainees' when a family member wanted more to be done for their sick loved one. "_Their judgment is clouded. All they want is to save their mother/father/sister/brother/daughter or son. That's their priority. It's our job to be objective; looks for what's there – not what we want to be there_." Now he was the one who couldn't be objective.

"House." Cuddy called to him as she came into his office. "Results came back on Grace's blood; only drug they found was aspirin." She shrugged. "It's not Bradycardia."

House said as he spun around in his chair to face her. "You know as well as I do how quickly drugs can get out of the system. Test her hair; there'll still be traces there."

"House; _you_ would know if your own daughter was on drugs!" Cuddy snapped aggressively. "You knew when a guy walked into a clinic with the sniffles that it was because he was coming down off an acid trip; you'd know if Grace was on something."

"Test her hair!" House shouted louder than he meant to. He flexed his knuckles together. "Just do it." He added in a calmer; yet equally firm voice.

"And when it comes back negative; what do you want us to do?" Cuddy folded her arms and looked at him expectantly. "Test her bone marot? Pump her stomach?" she dropped her arms down at her sides. "What is it gonna take to prove to you that it's not drugs?"

"It's not Bradycardia." Chase said as he came into the room with Cameron at his heels.

"What are you talking about?" Cuddy asked him.

"Grace just woke up; she's experiencing vision changes – blurry; to be exact." Chase informed them.

House got to his feet and limped over to his cane. "She woke up with it?"

Chase nodded.

"She's been unconscious for almost five hours," Cuddy said to House. "Everyone would experience blurred-"

"It's not Bradycardia." House said with a shrug.

"What?!" Cuddy yelped. "You just said that-"

"Blurred vision has nothing to do with Bradycardia." House reminded her. "It's something else," he looked to Chase and Cameron. "Figure out what." He limped out of his office.

"And where are you going?" Cuddy inquired.

"I'm going to see the patient." House told her with a sarcastic smirk. "Isn't that what doctors are s'posed to do?"

**xxx**


End file.
